Batik towels, a new twist of old fabric

Tarko Sudiarno, Yogyakarta

After shirts, dresses, scarves, bedcovers and cell phone pouches, come batik towels.

Tri Asayani, 24, a textile design student at the School of Arts and Design at the Bandung Institute of Technology, made a real breakthrough when she thought of using batik motifs to decorate towels.

Thirty of her batik towels were recently displayed at Bentara Budaya Yogyakarta. Her creativity means that towels are no longer just for the beach or the bathroom.

The towels are cotton and were woven on a non-machine weaver (ATBM) in Pekalongan, Central Java. Some display vertical lines, some are checkered, others contrast thick and thin lines. Tri used soft-colored Malam (ink used to paint batik) for all.

The motifs, however, are not traditional, nor are they from any one region.

Artwork that uses batik is nothing new here. Senior painters like Amri Yahya, Kuswadji or the late Bagong Kussudiardja used batik in unusual ways.

Unlike cotton or silk, the texture of the toweling made drawing on the design with a canting (pen for batik making) difficult, though Tri followed the same procedure as for the usual mori cloth.

She made the inks and dyes from plants, such as the noni root, besides chemical substances like indigosol and naphthol.

As a result, the lines are perfectly drawn and the colors rather beautiful. She also paints on silk towels.

An art critic from the Indonesian Arts Institute in Yogyakarta, Suwarno Wisetrotomo, said Tri's art "interrupted" conventional views of batik, and even called it subversive.

Suwarno explained that Tri had used geometric motifs in place of traditional ornamental ones, thus allowing for unprecedented designs.

"Can we do what we want with batik? Is there room for creativity?" Suwarno asked.

Yogyakarta Sultana Gusti Kanjeng Ratu Hemas said that Asayani was contributing to the preservation of batik as an Indonesian art form.

The wife of Sultan Hamengkubuwono X said that neighboring countries had managed to develop batik motifs, which, in the future, could become more popular than Indonesian ones.

She further urged the people to continuously improve methods of producing batik through creativity and advanced technology.